Q&A: Barney Frank on the Contempt of the House GOP

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It was about half-past the 32nd (or 33rd) health-care repeal shadowplay the other day that Congress's most prominent newlywed called back. Rep. Barney Frank, closing out his congressional career with the House in the hands of a vigorously non-governing majority, sounded like he'd made some kind of peace with that fact.

"Well, it's disappointing," he told me. "We are dealing with people who don't understand what the process of governing is, or who have contempt for that process. It's the contempt for something they don't understand. Something like this today, it's also disconcerting. It's like we're all in the theater or something.

"I spent 12 years here with the Republicans in power, and it was never like this. The Clinton impeachment was all about power. The Terri Schiavo thing, they all really thought they had the country behind them. But they weren't all extremists. Now, all the Republicans are either part of the Tea Party, or they're afraid of being in a primary with one of them. They're behaving more like an opposition parliamentary party in Great Britain. It's 100-percent opposition, and it's our job, as Democrats, to make sure the American people know how extreme this party has become."

Over the past couple of days, it's become quite clear that the passage of the Affordable Care Act wasn't enough. That its victory in the Supreme Court wasn't enough. And that, quite possibly, the re-election of Barack Obama may not be enough. Quoth the Politico:

Still, the party's more conservative members are pushing even harder for derailing the ACA. Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Rep. Michele Bachmann are circulating a letter that calls for a commitment to cut off funding to government agencies that administer the health law.

That doesn't mean Senate Republicans won't try, though. They may make new attempts to force a vote on repeal — starting with a small business bill, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has filed a repeal measure as an amendment.

Because he is retiring, and doesn't have to be as, ah, cautious with what he says as he used to be, Frank exposes the ultimate responsibility for this state of affairs, which is too often blamed on an amorphous decline in "civility" or "bipartisanship" or some other mythical phenomenon, by a vigorous application of Occam's Razor — namely, that a whole lot of somebodies go out and vote for these clowns.

"Ultimately, it's always up to the voters," he says. "Back in 2010, people elected a whole lot of extremists because they were so mad at the rest of us. Now, it's up to us to show them what's going on by asking them, 'Okay, now do you understand who you voted for?' People are responsible for the consequences of the choices they make."